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Speaking to the actual topic of this thread, I consider the Star Trek Chronology to be one of the best -- if not the best -- attempt at providing a "historical" context to the various Trek productions.

As a Star Trek fan of very long standing (since the first run of season 3, when I was 12), I have to say that the practice of never identifying the present Earth year should have been strictly maintained. That was one of the reasons for the Stardate system, wasn't it - to obscure the exact year back on Earth? (Giving the present date as a Stardate makes less obvious any variability between scripts concerning the number of years or centuries since our own time.)

With all respect for its creators, the published Star Trek Chronology is like the Jane Curtin fake Saturday Night Live ad in which she begins, "Hi. I'm beautiful but stupid."

The stardate system should have been thought out and designed properly before they went on the air. In TOS it doesn't have any systematic sense it in, except that the numbers get higher as the series goes along.

Then in TNG, stardates started with the number 4 to reflect the 24th century, but the next digit marked the show's season number. So in spinoffs beyond year 10, the stardates begin with 5. Again, it doesn't make good sense.

The stardate system should have been thought out and designed properly before they went on the air. In TOS it doesn't have any systematic sense it in, except that the numbers get higher as the series goes along.

I'd dare to say that by the time of TMP they tried to pin it down that 1,000 stardate digits equal one solar year (concluded from Kirk's TMP log entries). TAS notwithstanding (and subtracting idle time the Enterprise spent in spacedock) we'd have a 5 year mission that starts some while after stardate 1000 (1277.1? Kirk's tombstone) and ends around stardate 6000.

Bob

__________________
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth" Jean-Luc Picard
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein

I'd dare to say that by the time of TMP they tried to pin it down that 1,000 stardate digits equal one solar year (concluded from Kirk's TMP log entries). TAS notwithstanding (and subtracting idle time the Enterprise spent in spacedock) we'd have a 5 year mission that starts some while after stardate 1000 (1277.1? Kirk's tombstone) and ends around stardate 6000.

Bob

The tombstone dates are "C 1277.1 TO 1313.7"

Mitchell may have been insulting Kirk by calling him a one-year-old and getting his initial wrong.

The tombstone dates are "C 1277.1 TO 1313.7" Mitchell may have been insulting Kirk by calling him a one-year-old and getting his initial wrong

Yeah. If we think 1000 SD = 1 yr, then those dates would mean that Kirk's birthday and day of death would fall on the same year (the fourth digit from the right) but naturally on a different decade (the missing fifth digit). This would mean that since he's 34 around SD 3478 ("The Deadly Years"), he'd be about 31-32 in SD 1313, and thus 21-22, 11-12 or 1-2 in SD 1277 - the "system" would not allow him to be born on SD 1277 or any of its decade variants.

On the other hand, like Robert Comsol implies, Mitchell could be saying that Kirk was Captain ("C") of the Enterprise for that length of time, which is perfectly okay. Really, what else could the letter "C" mean? It's not standard tombstone symbology, now is it? But it is something Mitchell might want to remind Kirk of ("See how you failed in your life's work and ambition?") plus something that would not require the decade digit.

^^ "C" standing for "captaincy" is most likely, especially given the otherwise harsh contrast to the actual birth dates of Mitchell's and Dehner's onscreen medical records (old Federation calendar? Stardates apparently didn't exist, yet, in "The Cage"). Back in 1987 I did some deciphering of the birthdates on Mitchell's and Dehner's files but I'm not sure I still have my notes (didn't expect that by 2013 the issue would still be of interest and fans of ENT and GUT probably won't be interested).

__________________
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth" Jean-Luc Picard
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein